It was once said that, "the sun never sets on the British Empire",
meaning the British Empire spanned the globe. This was a long
time ago and that man was probably trying to sound more
prophetic then he really was, but in modern times Britain’s worldly
contributions have dwindled somewhat. Some people might even
have you believe that the only UK-born influences on North
American culture in recent times have been; the Spice Girls, some
large advances in dental technology and teeth cleaning, and a
foodstuff known as bangers n’ mash. I feel that these people are
all out idiots.

For a long time most people in America had no idea what Super
Touring Racing was, until they began seeing something known as
the BTCC (British Touring Car Championship) on Speed-Vision or
TSN. So exactly what is it? The BTCC is made up of semi-stock
sedans and coupes made mostly by European auto manufacturers
such as Volvo, Audi, Ford, Honda, Renault etc. These cars are
tuned by the teams to very precise specifications and have to fall
within extremely tight regulations to be race-worthy. Sounds a lot
like nearly every other type of racing, right? Wrong. BTCC racing
(TOCA is another, more general form of BTCC) is fast, and takes
place on very tight, twisting tracks. (As opposed to very fast ovals.)
Often times to pass a car, one must literally bump or ram it out of
the way, as the real drivers do. This all plays out brilliantly on our
TV sets, but how well can a gaming company like CodeMasters
replicate it on the PC? Read onů

TOCA2 is, obviously, a sequel. The original game was met with
less enthusiasm then the makers would have liked, but it was in no
way a bad game. It had some slight control problems, but it was
graphically good for it’s time, and with a good controller the game
played out and offered the gamer enough enjoyment to prolong
the CD’s life. With the sequel, the makers seem to have taken
suggested improvements not only from the original TOCA to heart,
but also I would imagine from Colin McRae Rally. Enough
yakking, on with the game.

The first time I loaded the game up I found the menu was
extremely simple to navigate. This may seem like a strange
observation, but recently many game makers have enjoyed
making a task out of just loading a game. When loading a single
race the player can choose the car they wish to drive, the paint
scheme for that car (to some degree), the track they wish to race
on, number of opponents, weather conditions, and opponent AI
levels. I had already played the demo of the game and thought I
knew what to expect of the final, but I was wrong. The controls
seem to me to have improved over those in the demo. Steering
sensitivity is adjustable, and depending on the skill level you
choose to play, the car you drive will spin out at different stages in
high-speed maneuvers. The tracks are all varied in their layout,
but are essentially all the same in what they offer the racer. One
isn’t much more challenging then the other, so when you’ve
mastered one, you’ve nearly mastered them all. They are still fun
to drive though, and do occasionally catch you off guard with a
turn that you forget was there. Opponent drivers are aggressive,
and willing to take chances like ramming other cars to gain a
position. For the most part they stay away from the player, but if
they cause a large crash you can easily be involved. Don’t try
ramming cars too hard though, because you get three warnings for
dangerous driving before you get ejected from the race.
Depending upon the difficulty level you chose to race at, the
opponents will only drive at a certain top speed. (All cars
incidentally have 138mph as their top speed.) The harder the
difficulty level at which you drive, the closer opponent cars will
drive to that magic number, until you reach expert level at which
point you won’t do much passing in the straight aways because of
straight line drag racing. Driving the cars in TOCA2 is a very
different affair to driving those in IndyCar or Nascar Racing, so
don’t be surprised if you experience frustration if those games are
the only types you play, or you can’t find your way around
Watkens Glen. Every track in TOCA2 is made up of some medium
sized straight aways followed by many fast, tight, twisting turns,
and you have to know how to use your brakes. In addition
to the different tracks, there are different ways to play them. The
first is the most obvious, single race. It is exactly what it’s name
says: a single race on any of the tracks you have available to you
in any of the cars you have access to.

The next type of game is
Championship mode. This too is the same as in every other
league type racing game. The player races through the tracks in
‘weekends’ (a weekend consists of two races) in sequential order.
Weather becomes a bigger factor in Championship mode because
the player has no control over it, and it can change half way
through a race rendering the player’s tires useless in the new
conditions. As the player advances through one difficulty level in
Championship mode, they gain access to new cars and new tracks
through passwords. The next form of gameplay was one I’ve
never heard of before. Known as "Support Car Championship", it
is basically a version of Championship mode, except the player
drives cars ranging from a suped up Ford Fiesta to a Lister Storm
and a Jaguar XJ220! The player starts out with access to only the
Fiesta and a lightweight Formula car, but gains additional cars as
a reward for winning. The final major type of gameplay in TOCA2
is Challenge. In Challenge mode the player races around the
tracks as they would in Championship mode, except that the tracks
are divided up into sections and the player has decreasing
amounts of time to cover those sections. If the player runs out of
time in a specific section before the race ends, the game is over. I
liked this form of arcade-style gameplay a lot, and felt it added
some time until this game hits the shelf. One relatively unique
aspect to TOCA2 is the weather effects inside the game. These
range from dry conditions, to light rain, to hard storm rain and
each has a different effect on the cars.

TOCA2 plays fairly well, and remains true to it’s real life
counterpart, but does it look the part? The answer is a resounding
- "SORTA!" TOCA2 doesn’t in any way have horribly bad graphics.
It looks good, and all the special effects you’d expect in a racing
game of this type are present. However, the graphics aren’t
astounding either. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think that this game
is based on the same engine that Colin McRae Rally was. While it
does look a bit crisper than CMR, and it does have better
dust/grass effects, the cars and reflections and sky all look out of
date compared to their contemporaries. What of the special
effects though? As I said, all the normal effects are here including
flying grass, dust, sparks, clouds reflecting in windows, and skid
marks, and all are rendered with reasonable quality as the
screenshots show. The weather conditions in the game also make
for some interesting effects such as your headlights reflecting in
the wet tarmac, and the dark clouds rolling in to replace the clear
sky. The end result of all of these special effects, combined with
the weather effects gave the game a bit more atmosphere than
games like Nascar 99, Nascar Revolution etc. The only real large
complaint I had with the graphics in TOCA2 was the pit crew.
When you pit your car for a tire change or more gas, the pit crew
is apparently 2 dimensional and frozen in your headlights. They
don’t move at all! Your car lifts and you hear the sounds of wheels
and torque wrenches going on, but you see no movement. This
doesn’t detract much from overall gameplay, but it would have
been nice to seem maybe SOME detail paid to this small part of
the game. Sound is the standard affair in TOCA2, and includes
speech from the pit crew. This isn’t just random chatter though,
your pit crew will be telling you such things as whether or not the
car in front of you has pitted, how you’re doing in the race, lap
positions and more. The engines all roar, or rather whine,
realistically, and sounds like skids and squeals are all present and
occur at the right times. I found it annoying though how the skid
sounds were the same, and repeated themselves over and over
because of how twisting most of the tracks are. In addition each
of the additional "support cars" has it’s own distinct sounds.

Basically, TOCA2 is a good racing simulation. It isn’t in any way
an arcade game, and isn’t in any way an oval racing game, so I
expect many people won’t like how much you need to use brakes.
The game requires the gamer to understand how to take corners,
cut apexes and other such in-depth physics. Some people will like
this, some will not. I suggest you try the demo to at least see what
the tracks are like before rushing out to buy the game, it will give
you a better idea of what to expect. If, however, you like grand
prix / grand touring style racing then by all means go ahead and
get this game!